Deep Thoughts from the Cow Barn

By

Dr. Robert E. Plucker

     Literature is liberally sprinkled with stories about strangely small insignificant events that turn one's life in an unexpected direction.  The quantum physicist's example is the butterfly beating its wings in a Brazilian forest, setting off a chain of events that lead to hurricanes or typhoons in the south Pacific.  This paper is an account of some tiny actions, words, events, that helped to cause an important turn in my life's direction.  The first small event was a question from my dad as we were getting ready to milk the cows on a fall afternoon.

     Little kids learn most of what they know from their parents, their first grade teachers, their surroundings, and people who probably don't differ much from their parents in occupation, speech, manners, dress, beliefs, and the like.  This was certainly true of me, some seventy years ago, living on a South Dakota farm surrounded by folks of German descent, the same as the family on both my mother and fathers side.

1886 Germantown Church & Manse

     We were faithful attendees at the Germantown Church, a conservative, fundamentalist Presbyterian country church.  The morning worship in those years was in High German, not the commonly spoken Low German, "Plattdeutsch".  When Sunday evening services were added somewhat later, they were in English, which rather surprised me, as I had thought God understood only German.  Pastor Siekmann thundered away in both languages with authority.

     Mom read Bible stories to my sister and me from Hurlbut's "Stories from the Bible" and we knew that these stories were true.  The King James Bible was not read much, as it was hardly suited to children's understanding.  Hurlbuts "Stories" were interesting and easy for little children to grasp and believe.  We were amazed at God's ability to make up a world in only six days.  No wonder he wanted to rest on the seventh day.

     Sunday School was another strong force in shaping our beliefs.  Two of its most formidable figures in my eyes, at least, were Uncle Enno Plucker, and Uncle Folkert Poppens, great-uncles, actually.  Uncle Enno was the Sunday School Superintendent, and Uncle Folkert was my Sunday School teacher.  They were both outstanding authority figures in the church, and we learned the TRUTH from them, "life in the Garden.  Jonah alive in the whale, Daniel unharmed in the lion's den, an enraged Moses smashing the tablets of stone at the sight of the golden calf, the parting of the Red Sea, all this was heady stuff, and all happened exactly as described in the Book.

     So here were my dad and I, walking to the barn to milk the cows (I suppose I must have been eight or nine), Dad reached over to open the barn door and asked the question.  I cannot imagine how the subject came up, but he said, "Do you really believe that all those stories in the Old Testament happened exactly as the Bible says?"  I said I did.  Six days.  Rest on the seventh. The Garden.  The serpent.  Adam, Eve, the apple – all of it. 

     Said he, “I think it is just a collection of stories, meant to teach a lesson."

     Since then, my life could never be the same, no longer a smug satisfaction that I knew all that it was useful to know, and all I needed to do was not screw up by playing cards, going dancing, drinking, or keeping my hat on in church.  Oh, there were plenty of things that were forbidden.  This one revelation, that my dad did not take the O.T. Bible stories literally, has caused for me a lifelong quest for Certainty.  I still wish I could find it.